


I've got you (it's okay)

by realityfallsapart



Series: Winteriron Month 2020 [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (not recreational drugs more like anesthesia), Angst, Arc Reactor Angst, Blood, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Fluff, Hospitals, Hurt Tony Stark, Kidnapping, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Off screen Torture, POV Bucky Barnes, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, bucky needs to stop mcfreaking hating himself!!!, everything is fine, fight scenes aren't too terribly graphic but the warning is there, have some goddamn self love!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:24:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22830172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/realityfallsapart/pseuds/realityfallsapart
Summary: His eyes went wide at the sight of Tony.His lip was split and there was blood running down the side of his face from somewhere on his head. His torso and shoulders were curled in on themselves and towards the right, and Bucky's brain put forward the possibility of a rib or internal deep tissue injury. Meanwhile, his wrists had an alarmingly dark ring of bruises around them this time, and he was barely putting any weight on his left ankle.God, Tony, what are they doing to you?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: Winteriron Month 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1641676
Comments: 16
Kudos: 331
Collections: WinterIron Month 2021





	I've got you (it's okay)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prompt for Winteriron Month 2020 on SFW Monday  
> Fic fills the following two prompts: TROPE/AU: Arc Reactor/Metal Arm Angst and WORD: Kidnapped
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Bucky's body is tucked in the leftmost corner of the cell he's in, eyes trained and glaring hard at the door not that far away from him. The room is bare and the walls are smooth and solid, lacking seams where portions have been fitted together. The ceiling, floor, and surrounding walls are steel, most likely incredibly thick. The door is similar, but Bucky had learned upon trying to thrust his fist through that it is reinforced with vibranium as well. There is no window or handle, and the hinges are on the other side. In short, there is nothing of even remote use in this cell for a possible escape. 

It may not be ideal, but the situation is far from hopeless. 

Bucky shifts his weight and flexes his fingers, trying to work some feeling into them. The vibranium enforced handcuffs that bind his wrists are tight enough to feel, but not enough to be the source of the static in his limbs—that would be the remainder of the drugs still in his system. 

The vague reminder of how this kidnapping even came about does nothing but make his mood sour further, his glare deepening. 

Today is Saturday, and Saturdays are date nights. Since it was Bucky's turn, he picked a new pizza joint that had recently opened. It had been getting good reviews online, and Tony had a thing for hole-in-the-wall restaurants, so Bucky was more than confident in his guaranteed success for the night—Tony would have a good time, they'd eat greasy pizza and enjoy a night out together. Not to mention that date-nights always ended with Bucky fucking a _very_ enthusiastic Tony through the mattress. 

They hadn't even made it to the pizza place. 

Three blocks from the restaurant Bucky's instincts detected a _shift,_ and he was instantly using his hand interlocked with Tony's to drag him between Bucky's body and the brick of the building behind them. His metal hand was on the gun at the back of his waistband even quicker, and his eyes systematically started to scan their surroundings. They hadn't gotten far; behind him, Tony's free hand came up to clench at Bucky's sleeve, _"Buc-"_ he had started, only for his voice to cut off with a gasp of surprise. Bucky was already snapping his head in the direction that Tony had been facing, and his eyes narrowed on the lone figure just barely visible on one of the rooftops. 

The hand on Bucky's sleeve fell away, and the fingers around his slipped through a heartbeat later, limp. Bucky had spun, his heart plummeting and arms instinctively coming up around Tony as he crumpled, eyes rolling back, two darts sticking out of the skin of his neck. Bucky's brain instantly paired it with the cause of Tony's surprised gasp a second earlier. 

As Bucky caught Tony's unconscious and falling form, he felt four quick pinches on the skin of the back of his neck. He had gasped with the sudden onslaught of powerful anesthesia rolling out from the little needles and used a hand to desperately brush them off. There were footsteps closing in rapidly on their position, and Bucky would have to keep his focus to get the both of them home in one piece, especially with the addition of very, _very_ potent drugs in his body. 

After tucking Tony's form carefully on the ground, he had brought his gun up, instantly pivoting on his heel. His body melted into a proper stance and he had two targets down before the rest of them closed in. 

Bucky shot another man and he went down hard, but Bucky hadn't waited to watch. As soon as the trigger had been pulled, Bucky turned, throwing all of his weight and strength into slamming the butt of the handgun into another soldier's face. Blood spurted up immediately, but the bit of gore didn't bother him—he had seen _much_ worse in his time with Hydra. 

A pair of hands had wrapped themselves around his free arm, but Bucky just turned his attention to the new enemy, disposing of him quickly and efficiently. In the small window of time that it took, another man had jumped on Bucky's back and jammed three new darts into his chest, the man's other arm wrapping around Bucky's neck. Yelling in both fury and frustration, Bucky had tried to rip the man from his shoulders, but it was more than a little difficult with the new wave of anesthesia. His limbs felt like TV static and the ringing in his ears started to phase out to something more mellow. Black had been rapidly forming around the outside of his vision, and the addition of the pressure on his windpipe only had made the darkness grow faster. 

Up until then, the entire confrontation had lasted three minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Seventeen seconds later two black vans found themselves at the curb. 

Forty-nine seconds later Bucky's knees ended up hitting the ground, his whole body lead and numb. 

Within Fifty-eight seconds of the second wave of drugs, Bucky had been unconscious and laid out on the pavement next to Tony. 

* * *

Bucky is standing before the door is even properly open. 

A soldier enters with his gun drawn, trained right between Bucky's eyes, and if his attention hadn't been on the other people entering his cell, he would have scoffed. _Like one man with a gun can stop me._

Two other soldiers followed the first, and between them was Tony. Bucky immediately caught his gaze, and the other man smiled brightly. There was a gash on his forehead and a bruise forming around his eye; Bucky had no doubts that if he gently looked, he would find other injuries on Tony's body. 

Seeing Tony hurt made his fists clench where they were fastened together in their cuffs, and if the flinch in the soldier with the gun was anything to go by, his rage was noticeable. 

_Good._

Tony was let go of, and he turned around, waving at the soldiers as they backed out of the cell. 

"Thanks for the walk back guys, I enjoyed our time together!" he called. Bucky huffed, but he couldn't deny the fondness in the noise any more than he could deny the way his mouth twitched upwards. 

Tony turned to Bucky and his smile turned into something softer, something that was just for Bucky. 

"Hey." 

"C'mere," Bucky responded, reaching out with his hands and pulling Tony towards him. They sat, and Bucky immediately manhandled Tony into his lap, throwing his cuffed hands up and over Tony's head until they sat comfortably around his waist. Tony leaned back into Bucky's chest and hummed, one hand around one of Bucky's. 

"You alright, sugar?" Bucky asked, his face pressed into Tony's neck. 

"Mostly, yeah, they just roughed me up a little to get the other Avengers' attention. Hydra seems to want that officer we captured recently back _badly._ "

"So we're the bait?" 

"Guess so. Some sort of bargaining chip, or something else like it. I think they wanted to show that they were serious by throwing a few punches, and I don't think they're stupid enough to try and think that they can pull something like that on you." 

Bucky's hands curled possessively into the fabric of Tony's shirt, mood darkening for a moment. 

"They're already stupid as hell tryin' a' pull that shit with you."

Tony leaned his head back and pressed a fond kiss to the side of Bucky's neck, his grin a little wider at Bucky's Brooklyn accent popping through—it did that a lot when he was worried. 

"I'm alright. Besides, with how much you were glaring at those guys to keel over and die, I don't think that we'll have to worry about anything like that for a little." 

Bucky grumbled, but he relented; there was no use being too bent out of shape about it when it was all in the past. 

"They cuffed you, huh?" Tony said, changing the topic, "I'm guessing they're at least reinforced with vibranium since you haven't broken them to bits yet." 

"Unfortunately." 

"At least they gave you a collar to match. Kinky." 

"Very." 

"Do we know what it does yet?" 

Bucky grimaced. 

"It shocks me if I try and take it off. I don't know the voltage, but it was enough to get me to quit it." 

Tony's eyebrows creased in a frown. 

"Guess we'll have to deal with that too." 

"Right now you don't have to deal with anything. Why don't you try and get some sleep, huh, doll?" 

"They didn't exactly beat me to a pulp, ice-pop. I'm alright." 

"Yeah, well it's probably close to 'bout eleven at this point. Good thing about being locked up in an eight-by-eight square foot cell is that I don't have to worry 'bout you working 'till five in the morning fiddling around like you do." 

"Excuse you, I don't _fiddle,_ " Tony cried, "I'm a scientist and a mechanic and-" Bucky was laughing and only half paying attention at this point. Whenever Bucky tried to insinuate that Tony was doing anything else with his time besides being an absolute genius, he always reacted with the same indignation. Bucky knew that he would go on and on about the value of workshop time, how he was working himself to the bone for the sake of humanity, thank you very much, and how he had lasted this far on caffeine and brilliancy, so what was a few hours missing here or there when it meant the world was a little bit safer?

"-and _another_ thing, I do _not-_ mpf!" 

Bucky also knew that Tony is very easy to quiet with a kiss. 

When Bucky pulled away, Tony tried his damndest to look put out, but the corner of his mouth kept twitching like it ached to draw itself into a smile. 

"You kissing me to get me to shut up is wildly unfair." 

"Maybe. But you love me anyways." 

Tony rolled his eyes, keeping up the charade that they both knew was fake even as his body melted further into Bucky's embrace. 

"Yeah. Lucky me." 

* * *

From what Bucky can gather, it's been between seven and ten days since they were drugged and captured. Thankfully, he and Tony have _mostly_ been left alone to their own devices. 

Mostly didn't mean all the time though, and that was a lesson that Bucky was painfully aware of. 

Right now he was alone—about two hours earlier soldiers had opened their cell and dragged Tony out with enough guns drawn to keep Bucky from doing anything rash. Tony had flashed Bucky a half-manic grin on his way out, but the sight hadn't made Bucky feel any better. 

In the time that they had been here, Tony had been taken out three times, including today. The specifics of what Tony was facing outside of the cell was unknown to him because Tony refused to tell him, but Bucky didn't need to know the gruesome details to know that they had the gall to fucking _torture_ him. 

In a clinical sense, Bucky could understand. Hydra's primary target was to regain the possession of one of the head officers that the Avengers had recently tossed into prison, and they were trying to do that through a prisoner exchange with the two of them. However, it would be more than welcome to achieve their goal without losing their hostages, which was where Tony came in. Tony and Bucky would obviously have the clearance to know not only where the Hydra officer was being held, but probably information about the building, possible forces on base, and other valuable details. 

Bucky had broken his conditioning ages ago, but that didn't mean that he still wasn't tough shit, and Hydra knew that personally. He could understand that torturing him not only would be a waste of time and energy—they wouldn't be able to get anything out of him even if they _tried_ —but that it would put him in a very close proximity with weapons, and circumstances like those would turn out very, _very_ bad for anyone even in the close vicinity. 

Tony, meanwhile, may be notorious for not giving anyone the time of day in his long list of kidnappings (a list that made Bucky see _red_ ), but zero was still greater than a negative, so him giving them anything to work with had a much higher success rate, and therefore it made him the obvious choice. 

Intellectually, Bucky knew all of this. Emotionally? Mentally? Bucky was close to shaking with rage every time Tony came back to him, more battered and bruised than when he had left. He had yet to return with a serious injury, and he wasn't showing any signs of reaching the end of his mental tether, but that didn't stop Bucky's brain from going a mile a minute. 

He was worried and upset and _furious_ at both himself and everyone that had even the smallest role in each and every one of Tony's bruises. 

Bucky should have kept them from being captured, should have stopped them from taking Tony, should have protected him, should have done so much more. But that isn't the point right now—he can feel sorry for himself and make his excuses when they aren't being held captive. 

So Bucky was alone, trying hard not to think about what Tony was going through alone and failing miserably. 

* * *

Bucky was already standing when the door was wrenched open. He pushed his body into a defensive stance immediately at the sight of soldiers and guns, but his eyes went wide at the sight of Tony. 

His lip was split and there was blood running down the side of his face from somewhere on his head. His torso and shoulders were curled in on themselves and towards the right, and Bucky's brain put forward the possibility of a rib or internal deep tissue injury. Meanwhile, his wrists had an alarmingly dark ring of bruises around them this time, and he was barely putting any weight on his left ankle. 

_God, Tony, what are they doing to you?_

Bucky instantly dropped his stance and took a few steps forward, intent on bringing Tony into his arms, but he had only covered a foot or two of ground when there was a cackle of energy in his ear and then there was molten heat bursting behind his eyeballs, sizzling through his veins and making his lungs stutter, the oxygen he so desperately needed taunting him from where it stayed outside of his body and just out of reach. 

Somewhere in the back of his head, Bucky heard Tony cry out for him. 

Bucky gasped as his vision returned to him, and he was on the floor on his hands and knees, Tony crouching in front of him—when had he gotten there? His eyes drifted to the now-closed door of their cell. They were alone. 

"Bucky? Hey, are you still with me? Terminator? Buck?" 

Bucky nodded, panting, reaching out to put his palm on Tony's cheek. 

"Alright?" Bucky managed, his voice croaky and too deep. He distantly registered the faint smell of burnt flesh. 

Relief washed over Tony's face, and he gave Bucky a smile. 

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." 

His vocal cords felt raw and incapacitated, so Bucky just let his fingers prod Tony's head where Bucky wanted it until he caught sight of a gash along Tony's hairline. That's where all of the blood was coming from. 

It didn't look deep at all, and Bucky knew well enough that head injuries bleed and bleed and _bleed._ Still, he lifted his shirt from where it covered his body to the side of Tony's head and slowly cleaned away the dripping blood falling from the wound. He ripped off a corner of it and handed it to Tony, demanding that he hold it to his head with both Bucky's eyes and a few rough words. 

Afterwards, like every time Tony returned after spending time with the soldiers, Bucky systematically checked over all of his bones to make sure none of them were broken, cataloged new injuries, and did what he could to make Tony as comfortable as possible. This time that meant that he ripped off the hem of his shirt as well and wrapped it around Tony's ankle. It meant that he pressed feather-light kisses to the patches of purple and black and blue on Tony's skin. It meant that his heart ached, but Tony was smiling wide. 

It makes Bucky so, _so_ angry to see his genius hurt like this, but right now Bucky can't get them out of this no matter how much he wants to, and that knowledge _hurts_. 

Bucky watched Tony's eyes flick over to the door for a second before a wave of determination overtook his features. He gently pushed Bucky to the corner of their cell, but Bucky was more than fine with following him wherever Tony wanted him. Making sure that Bucky's back was facing the door, Tony scooched himself in between the wall and Bucky's body, sitting right on his lap. He let his head fall onto Bucky's shoulder, but his hands drifted up to rest on Bucky's collarbones. 

"Thank you for taking care of me," Tony said, "Now relax, you can lean on me, it's alright. I have work to do anyways." Tony pressed a small, thin object to the front of Bucky's chest. "Don't look, but I managed to swipe it from one of the tables before they were done with me. It's not the best tool I've ever used, but since I'm not exactly going to be disabling a bomb or anything I'm not too upset at the limit on finesse." 

Bucky is just going to ask, sorry, what the _hell_ Tony thought he was going to work on, but he felt fingers gently press at the collar on Bucky's neck, fiddling with the metal. 

"I bet that I can disable the electric on this thing, or just snip some wires and call it a day." 

"Yeah?" Bucky asked. His voice was coming back a little, but everything still felt raw. 

"Yeah, so you just sit tight and look pretty, they won't be able to hurt you like this anymore," Tony muttered, and Bucky caught just the edge of a dark, possessive look on his face. It made Bucky's heart swell to have another reminder of how much Tony loved him, how much he was willing to do to stop Bucky from having to be in pain. 

A moment later, Bucky's heart sunk in his chest. Tony was doing so much for him, and what had Bucky done besides hold him and kiss his wounds? How exactly had Bucky protected Tony? 

Bucky rested his head on top of Tony's and listened to the sound of his breathing and the faint noise of Tony messing around with the wires and metal around his neck. 

He would make it up to Tony. He had to. 

* * *

Two days pass without much fanfare. They eat their meals, and Hydra doesn't bother trying to wrangle information that they aren't going to get out of Tony. 

Bucky's collar was now completely disabled. Tony hadn't cut the power completely due to his fear that they were monitoring the electricity feed to make sure that Tony wasn't tampering with their tech. Instead, he had relocated several different parts and rearranged the wires to them, shocking himself more than enough times for Bucky's comfort. In the end though, Tony had been quite pleased with himself, and Bucky was once again marveled at the absolute stunning _genius_ of his boyfriend. 

Tony had explained it to him like a TV remote and the receptor in a cable box. The remote sent signals to the receptor, and those signals told the TV what to do. In this case, Tony had basically interrupted the circuit Bucky's collar and the "remote" were making by diverting the wiring to other parts of the collar. This effectively allowed it to still receive those "shock" signals, but prevented it from having the ability to read and therefore act upon those same signals. 

And Tony had done it all with his hands and the equivalent of a goddamn _paperclip_. 

Incredible. 

* * *

Halfway through the fourth day, Bucky could tell that something was wrong. To what degree remained to be determined, but for now, he was on edge. 

Ever since Tony had been dragged back to their cell, they had been left alone besides when they were given meals. Today's problem was that food came at strict eight hour intervals, and they were nearly up to hour eleven. 

In Bucky's experience, it's when a carefully regulated system fails that things turn to shit. 

The possibility of Hydra trying to starve information out of them was close to nonexistent. It was clear that their main function was to be hostages up for exchange of a valuable prisoner. Tony had been pried at and questioned, but it was mostly to see if they could squander up any loose ends and receive a bonus to their capture besides the return of their officer. Plus, Bucky had not only been conditioned to resist starvation for long amounts of time, but his juiced-up body was _built_ to withstand food shortages, so attempting to get something out of him like this was incredibly inefficient and wouldn't work in the slightest. Tony hadn't been taken from the cell in several days, and there were no demands for them to fill. 

So the lack of food wasn't because Hydra wanted something. And Bucky would bet his life that they wouldn't just forget about their two currently most valued prisoners, which meant that there was an outside influence at play. 

On one hand, Bucky hoped that the wild card just so happened to be the Avengers. He had had enough of being locked up, and if Tony had got so much as another scratch Bucky might lose it. He wanted to get out, eat something very heavy in carbs with Tony, and then tuck them both away in bed for twelve hours. 

On the other, Bucky fucking _hated_ whatever the hell was wrong. He couldn't exactly prepare for anything if he didn't know what he was preparing for, and that feeling of hopelessness sat in his chest, pressed right up against his ribcage. 

Tony's hand curled itself tighter in the strands of Bucky's hair, his fingernails dragging across Bucky's scalp. Bucky felt his body unconsciously relax just the tiniest bit to the touch. 

"Relax, snowflake," Tony murmured, "everything will be alright." 

_You don't know that,_ Bucky thought desperately. All of his experiences were simmering at the front of his mind, and the anticipation of waiting for the other shoe to drop was almost killing him. He didn't just have to worry about himself, he had to worry about Tony, and that caused his heart to race. 

Bucky forced himself to try and relax, pressing himself further into Tony's chest behind him. 

Their backs were up against the corner, farthest away from the door—the only point of entry. The walls were too thick for Bucky to make a dent with a punch, so they were incredibly strong and provided ample protection. Tony was tucked away behind Bucky's body, as safe as he could be. 

_Everything will be alright._

Bucky hoped so, _god_ did he hope so. 

* * *

Forty-seven minutes later the door was wrenched open and nine armoured and heavily armed soldiers came streaming through the door. None of them approached Bucky or Tony, but it didn't matter—Bucky was already standing and ready to fight for Tony's life before the first guard had even taken one step inside the room. 

"Stand down, Asset, I do _not_ have the time for this." 

The new man stands tall and with his shoulders pushed back, chin high. It is obvious that he far outranks the soldiers around them, and between his posture and how he strides in with a blase tone, he commands respect and compliance. 

Too fucking bad Bucky won't give him either. 

"His name is _James,_ asshole," Tony says immediately, taking a half step out from behind Bucky's body—he had instantly pushed Tony behind him the moment he heard hands settle on the handle outside. Bucky's hand flew out to prevent Tony from moving any further out from the relative safety of the shield Bucky was providing, but that didn't stop Tony from craning his neck out to scowl better at their new enemy. 

"The Asset doesn't have a name. Now, you will step out from behind the Asset, or you will have a bullet between your eyes. I will not bargain; do not try me, Stark." 

"Yeah, sure, you can—" 

Bucky nearly snapped his neck trying to put himself in the way of the gun that the officer had drawn and leveled right between Tony's eyes. 

"Mr. Stark, I suggest you move or I will be forced to put a bullet in the Asset. I know how much he means to you. It would be tragic to see him in such pain, don't you think?" 

"This isn't my first walk around the park. Everyone in this room knows that he and I are needed to have your little prisoner exchange. Shooting him would be like shooting your own goddamn balls," Tony snorted. Bucky didn't have to be looking at him to know that there was a mask on his face right now, each emotion and tone carefully constructed to show nothing of value. Bucky, however, was privy to all of the things that a normal person wouldn't be and he could hear the slight shake of Tony's voice—the possibility of Bucky being injured was stressing him out. 

The officer in front of them smiled coldly. 

"This has gone very far past the prisoner exchange, Mr. Stark, and Hydra has new priorities. The Asset will heal anything besides a fatal shot, and I'm more than capable of not hitting one of his major organs. Move, _now,_ or he will suffer the consequences." 

"Trust me," Tony murmured. He stepped out from behind Bucky, but Bucky's hand lashed out and grabbed onto his sleeve, milliseconds from dragging Tony back to safety when the cocking of a gun made Bucky freeze. The barrel was aimed unmistakably on Tony's frame. 

"I am not a patient man." 

Tony leveled Bucky with a look that said everything, and Bucky found the fabric of Tony's shirt slipping right through his fingers. Tony stepped away and as soon as he was within arms' reach, the officer forcefully grabbed Tony by the upper arm and pulled him close, pressing the gun right to the skin of his left temple. 

"I can assure you that at this point Mr. Stark's value to me is nothing more than leverage to get you to do what I want. I will not hesitate to kill him if the method proves ineffective in its ability to control you. One of my soldiers will approach you and inject you multiple times. You will allow this or Mr. Stark will be terminated, do you understand, Asset?" 

Bucky was still for a heartbeat, his eyes stuck on Tony's wide ones. Then he nodded. 

"Correct answer." 

Bucky was injected with three vials of an unidentified substance. They were tranquilizers of some sort, but they didn't make Bucky's head feel like cotton or make his limbs buzz like TV static, so they weren't the same chemical as what had been used on them to kidnap them in the first place. It was most likely either diluted or completely different altogether. 

As soon as the soldier stepped away though, he turned right to Tony and produced another needle. 

"He doesn't-" Bucky began, panic flaring up in his heart. The chemical make-up was unknown, and Bucky didn't have any way to tell what the hell they were about to inject his boyfriend with. Not to mention that, assuming Tony was getting the same thing as Bucky, one dose would be more than enough to hinder Tony's mental and physical processes if three were affecting Bucky so much already. 

Wordlessly, the safety was clicked off, and both the sight and the sound sent Bucky's very soul falling through his ass. 

Needless to say, he shut up very quickly. 

Bucky watched as Tony was injected, his stomach twisting once the plunger was pushed down. 

"Let's move." 

The gun was kept at the side of Tony's head, and Bucky couldn't stop his eyes from drifting to the hand around it, the trigger finger a hair's breadth away from splattering Tony's brain against the wall. He let two soldiers roughly grab at his bound arms and haul him forward while a soldier walked forward to replace the officer and pulled out his pistol. He shoved it against the other side of Tony's head hard enough to make him wince, but Bucky didn't dare broadcast how much it made his hackles rise. 

They were both marched out of the cell and into the hallway. Distantly, Bucky could make out the sounds of fighting, and he smiled. That would be the Avengers doing what they do best. 

Bucky flicked his eyes to Tony to see if he had noticed as well only to frown deeply at the sight of Tony swaying a little on his feet, eyes lidded. 

Tony's body had taken a beating during their capture, and combined with the limited food that they were given, it had made him weaker. After the drugs he had just been pumped with Bucky expected him to be at least a little woozy, but he wouldn't have expected him to be this effected so soon. Was the meal that they hadn't been given making him react this badly? Something else? 

"Status?" The officer asked through a hand radio. The response was garbled, but Bucky's attention didn't tear itself away fast enough from Tony to catch it. The officer nodded and pocketed the radio. 

"You two, in front," he said, motioning to two of the soldiers. As they moved, the officer glanced back at Tony. "If he can't keep up you can shoot him." 

Bucky _snarled,_ shoving the surprised hands off of his body and surging forward, ready to tear that motherfucker's _throat out-_

He hit the ground hard, his head thumping loudly against the floor. There were three soldiers on top of him, but that didn't stop Bucky from trying to throw them off. He couldn't though—the drugs in his body were already making his limbs hard to move and now there was a terrible fuzziness in his head from his unfortunate spill onto the floor. 

Something hard and plastic jammed itself into his side and Bucky's whole body clenched as electricity surged through his core, radiating outward to make everything twitch and _burn._

Bucky gasped as it was pulled away, and then he was being pulled upwards and onto his unsteady feet. There was a gun now shoved into his spine. 

"Keep your outbursts to yourself, Asset, or I will kill him _now,_ " the officer snarled, "get moving." 

Bucky was once again sandwiched between two soldiers, but this time the remaining four surrounded themselves around him. They all had at least some sort of weapon drawn, and Bucky couldn't help but notice that the ones with a gun in their hand had their trigger fingers clenching and unclenching around the gun, anxious. He wondered who was making them the most nervous right now—the Avengers or Bucky himself. 

Tony was being marched in front of Bucky with about six feet of distance between them. He tried to make out how Tony was doing keeping up, but Bucky couldn't make out much through the soldiers in front of him. 

"Move, damnit!" the soldier with his barrel up against Bucky's spine mumbled, driving Bucky's feet moving faster. He didn't blame the man—he would be close to shitting himself too if the Avengers were nearly to nipping at his heels and most likely _furiously_ pissed off. 

For a few minutes, all that could be heard was the sound of their feet against the floor and their breaths. But then the officer's radio cracked back into life, and this time Bucky caught it. 

The voice is several steps past panicked, and the sounds of violence bleed through the tiny speakers. 

_"They've breached the secondary levels there's……….can anyone hear……...the Avengers have gotten past the—"_

The voice breaks out into a scream and a burst of gunfire only to be cut off and for static to take its place. 

_"Damnit!"_

The radio is thrown against the wall and the officer snaps his fingers, gesturing to the soldier holding Tony. 

"There's no time and we need a distraction. Get him on the floor and hold him down by his shoulders." His attention moved towards Bucky. "Put the Asset up against the wall and keep him there, all of us are dead men if any of you slip up. Do whatever you need to do to get it done, but for god's sake _don't_ let him go." 

Bucky's legs are reflexively backpedaling as the soldiers snap into motion. His back slams against the wall, but he only dimly registers it because his attention is so firmly on Tony. Tony is manhandled onto the ground and and held there roughly, the hands on his upper body visibly digging into his skin. 

"What—" Tony gasped, squirming helplessly. 

Bucky watched as the officer drops and straddles Tony's waist, using his weight to keep Tony from moving his torso. He gripped the sides of Tony's shirt and ripped, the worn and dirty fabric tearing and falling away to expose Tony's chest molted with bruises in several different shades of healing, and the arc reactor. 

"What the _fucking—_ hey! Get off of him! Get the _fuck-_ " Bucky starts to yell, but a fist hitting his diaphragm pushes the air out of his lungs. He sucks in a breath back in greedily, and now Tony is yelling, panicked and trying to throw the two men holding him in place off, but he _can't._ His body is too weak from their imprisonment and the drugs are too strong, making his movements sluggish and uncoordinated. 

"Be happy that you're good for something, Stark. The Avengers will be too preoccupied with trying to save your life to stop me or the Asset." The officer said. Bucky started to scream, his whole body moving in an effort to get away from the soldiers, he had to help Tony, he _had to, good god, Tony—_

The officer's fingers curled around the edges of the arc reactor where it met its casing and started to twist, his face scrunching up into a grimace as he tried to find a good grip to twist it out of Tony's chest. 

Tony's words of protest devolved into yells of pain, his head thumping back against the floor. 

The officer was struggling, the arc reactor still locked into its casing. Meanwhile Tony had tears rolling down his face as the casing was pulled and jostled inside his chest. 

_"I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you!"_

The knife sends a roar tearing through Bucky's throat and the surge of strength and determination and _fury_ are nearly enough to pull away from the half a dozen soldiers pressing him into the wall, but these soldiers are fighting for their lives and their blind panic is enough to hold his drug-addled body long enough for one of them to shove another needle into Bucky's neck, the contents being violently pushing into Bucky's body. It's different from what he had just been given not that long ago—instead of a gradual buildup the leaden feeling slams through him fast enough to make him dizzy. 

The soldiers use his lapse to throw him back into the wall and keep him there. 

"Hurry _up_!" one of the soldiers bellows, "Or he's going to get his lights knocked the _fuck_ out consequences be damned!" 

The officer doesn't even seem to acknowledge the insolence. Instead he jams the blade of his knife between the arc reactor and it's casing and _twists._

Tony _screams,_ his whole body going breathlessly rigid and arching up against the hands and the body on top of him. 

For a horrible, terrible moment, everything holds still, and the only variable is Bucky's threats slipping between English and Russian, his brain too hyped up on _panic_ to stick with one language. 

Then the arc reactor gives and it's popping out of the casing. The officer grins and grabs it. "One last golden egg," he mutters as he yanks out the cords connecting the reactor to Tony. Tony's voice cuts off instantly and he breathes in, the air passing through his lips sounding like a wheeze. His eyes bug out of his head and his body clenches one last time before the tension drops out of him and his body thumps against the ground. His eyes are open but they're glassy and unfocused. 

_"Tony? Tony! Tony_ **_please-_ ** _"_

The officer and the soldier stand, leaving Tony on the floor, _motionless, fuck no please-_

It takes all of them to pull Bucky away. He keeps screaming and thrashing, his body straining so hard against the hands and arms and fingers that hold him, but his vision is black at the edges and he can't feel his limbs from the drugs in his system. His body is compromised—he knows it. But that doesn't stop him from trying to break free, trying to get to Tony. 

_Tony baby please,_ **_fuck_ ** _, please please please hang on I'm coming, I'm coming! Tony!_ **_Tony!_ **

He loses sight of Tony, but Bucky can still see him, slumped up against the floor, mouth gasping and eyes fixed unseeingly on the ceiling. 

Bucky's head is already counting the seconds; Tony can last five minutes and twenty-two seconds without the reactor before his chances reach critical, and even then he has about another minute until the first piece of shrapnel starts to bury itself into the wall of his right atrium. But Tony has less than seven minutes before he's dead, and thirty-seven of those seconds have already passed and Bucky's doing _nothing,_ he hadn't stopped it and now he isn't even _there_ with him. 

After another twelve seconds of Bucky fruitlessly trying to slow their progress, he's pulled into the back of a vehicle and several soldiers follow his body's fall into the bed of the truck, holding him fast. The officer isn't there—he must be in the front of the truck somewhere. 

Off to his right he hears a door slam open and then there is a familiar _swish_ flying through the air before Steve's shield takes out two of the soldiers automatically, their bodies falling either unconscious or dead. 

Before they even hit the ground, three gunshots are ringing out through the air faster than Bucky's heart in his chest and Bucky knows that the men going limp at his side are dead thanks to Natasha. 

Bucky _roars,_ grabbing onto the uniform of one of the soldiers and throwing him into the remaining ones standing. He hears bones crack and wants to stay and make sure that they all die, but there are more important things at stake. 

_Four minutes and fifty-nine seconds left._

He swings out of the bed of the truck and rips the driver's side door off, ignoring the gun that the officer is trying to pull. Bucky rips the arc reactor out of his hands and uses his metal fist to slam into the man's face, right where his eyes are drowning in _terror._

This time when he hears the sickening snap of bones yielding under his strength he smiles. This man wanted to take Bucky and erase everything again; He wanted to bring back the Winter Soldier back from the dead. 

_Fine._

He might as well find out exactly what the Winter Soldier is capable of. 

There's blood splattered across the dashboard and the seats, flowing onto the floor and following the cracks in the metal of Bucky's arm. 

Arms wrap around Bucky's shoulders and pull him back, and even though Bucky knows that they belong to Steve, he fights for a moment, he needs to make them _pay-_

"Bucky! Stop! We need to get the reactor to Tony!" 

Steve drops him just as fast as Bucky stills, his mind snapping back into focus. Tony needs him. _Tony needs him._

_Four minutes and seven seconds left._

There's so many drugs in his system from before that Bucky's nearly sick with it, but that doesn't matter right now. He takes off in a sprint, pushing his legs as fast as he can make them when they feel like jello, and then trying to take it up a notch further. His body is the peak of human perfection—it has to be good for something besides letting Tony down. 

Bucky closes the distance in nineteen seconds. 

_Three minutes and forty-eight seconds._

Bucky skids to a stop and drops to his knees right next to Tony. On the other side of Tony's body— _fuck,_ do _not_ think of Tony like that, he's _still_ _alive —_ is Bruce, his fingers pressed up against Tony's pulse. Clint is almost right on top of them with his bow drawn, eyes murderous and fingers clenched around the arrow notched. His body is drawn in tight like he's _hoping_ for some kind of threat to show up just to have something to work the anger out on. There's a part of Bucky that thinks of how close Tony and Clint are and knows that the man is nearly burning at the sight of Tony so close to death. 

Wordlessly, Bucky hands over the arc reactor. Bruce's eyes are green around the edges. 

_Three minutes and thirty-nine seconds until death. Two minutes and thirty-nine seconds until his heart is breached._

Bruce flips over the reactor and starts grabbing at the wires sticking out of Tony's chest, and _fuck,_ Bucky finally gets a good look at Tony and he nearly throws up. 

Tony's skin is paler than Bucky's ever seen it, and when Bucky tries to push his sweat soaked hair out of his face he's clammy and cold to the touch. Heart in his throat, Bucky threads his finger's through Tony's limp ones and brings their hands up, resting his lips against the back of Tony's hand in what had meant to be a kiss but turned out to be more of a harsh exhale. 

_Two minutes and eleven seconds until the shrapnel hits._

"C'mon, c'mon sweetheart, hang on for me, alright? Almost there, why dontcha open your eyes for me, doll? Huh? Tony baby please open your eyes for me-" Bucky murmured, his voice cracking. But Tony's eyes didn't open. They were rolled back in their sockets, eyelids fluttering haphazardly. 

His eyes snapped back to Bruce, who was just finishing up with the reactor. Bucky knew that everyone on their team had been given training by Tony himself on what to do to reconnect the reactor, but there was the irrational fear that something was going to go wrong clawing at Bucky's chest. He would have done it himself but his hands were shaking too bad to hold anything. 

_"Fuck!"_ Bruce snarled, carefully feeding his fingers into the gaping hole in Tony's chest to grab the last wire, his skin coming back bloody but whole; it was Tony's blood. 

"The knife, he used a knife to get it out, I-I-" Bucky gasped, the memories clicking into place and cause and effect snapping together. The knife had caused damage, and judging by the new slickness of Bruce's fingers, a lot. 

Steve's arm wraps around Bucky's chest, trying in vain to comfort. 

_One minute and fifty-seven seconds._

Bruce twists the last wire into place and Tony's body jumps as the arc reactor reconnects. Bucky's hand catches Tony's head before it hits the ground again. The arc reactor flickers before it hits steady, and Bruce is once again pressing his fingers to the side of Tony's neck, one hand red and the other nearly green. His mouth moves as he counts and Bucky isn't breathing, isn't moving, what if the arc reactor had been damaged, what if Bucky's counting had been off, was he too late, was-

Bruce sighs in relief. 

"He's fine, his heart is beating he's okay." 

The tension breaks completely, Clint tipping his head back in gratitude, Natasha closing her eyes and letting her shoulders fall. Steve also lets himself deflate for a moment, the tenseness that he had been holding onto flowing out of his body. 

Bucky's breath broke on a sob and he seemed to crumple in on himself, dropping shaky kisses onto Tony's hand over and over. 

Bruce was the first to break the moment. 

"We need to get him out of here and into medical immediately. Steve can you carry him? The rest of us will keep watch fine—I doubt Thor let anyone past him." 

"I'll carry him," Bucky interrupted, already moving to slide his arms under Tony's unconscious frame. Steve's hands stopped him. 

"You're in no condition to be carrying anybody, Buck. Let me take him, he'll be alright." 

Bucky opened his mouth to protest but Natasha beat him to it. 

"You've very obviously been drugged, you're bleeding and shaking, and you've been held captive for days now." 

"Yeah, you can probably barely carry yourself, man. Tony'll be fine." Clint adds. 

Before he can do anything Steve is gently scooping Tony up and Clint is helping Bucky stand. 

They make their way back through the base, Clint and Natasha on a high enough alert that Bucky allows himself to relax a little. There's a weariness that goes deeper than his bones, so Bucky is quietly grateful to Bruce's frame tucked under his arm, quietly supporting him. 

Thor is waiting by the quinjet, tasked with guarding it after he had disposed of all of the Hydra soldiers on base—apparently Bucky's screams had been loud enough that when the Avengers had heard them, they immediately put everything they could towards getting to Bucky and Tony, and that included letting Thor mop up. 

The god's face darkened significantly when he saw the state that Tony and Bucky were in, and he moved to take Bucky from Bruce. 

"'m fine, don't worry," Bucky mumbled, his words slurring a little. 

"You are not fine, let me help you." 

Thor didn't wait for an answer before easily taking most of Bucky's weight and helping him into the quinjet. 

Thor sat him down on one of the cots and Bucky nearly folded right over once he wasn't on his feet anymore. With a big hand on Bucky's chest, Thor easily caught him and kept him from tumbling to the floor. 

"Easy," he rumbled, "easy." 

Bruce appeared before them in no time.

"He's going to be fine," he murmured, but Bucky didn't know if Bruce was talking about him or Tony. He wanted to ask, but his brain kept stuttering in his skull and he couldn't really feel his body too well. He was crashing from the drugs and the adrenaline. 

Bruce slid an IV into Bucky's arm, and right before he drifted off he dimly heard Bruce task Thor with making sure that he was alright for the duration of the flight. 

* * *

Bucky let his thumb glide over the soft skin of Tony's hand, grateful beyond words over the fact that it was no longer clammy and pale. Tony was in his hospital bed, sleeping. There were more than a few bandages across his body and several machines hooked up to him, but he had color in his cheeks and the heart monitor assured Bucky that everything was alright. 

The hospital room door opened and Bucky didn't even have to look up to know that it was Janet, the nurse tasked with him and Tony. 

"There's a perfectly good hospital bed right next to him that you could be laying on." She grumbled, unhooking Bucky's IV so she could attach a new bag. 

"I know," Bucky said softly, "but I'm fine right here." 

Janet huffed and swatted him on the arm. It didn't hurt in the slightest, but it did make Bucky smile. Janet was tiny and a step past middle aged—to see her unafraid to mockingly hit the Winter Soldier was both funny and endearing. 

"I don't want to hear it. If I didn't have a million other things to do besides deal with stubborn superheroes I would have picked you up and put you in that bed myself." She checked over Tony's vitals and wrote a few things down on his clipboard. "We both know that as soon as he wakes up and sees you out of a bed it's going to be the end of the world, so if I find out that you weren't in a bed before then you're going to have _me_ to deal with, understand? I don't need Iron Man trying to jump out of bed just to put his boyfriend in one." 

Bucky's smile was wide enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes—he really loved Janet. 

"Of course."

"You say that now but you're just going to sit here anyways," she mumbled, turning back to Bucky and putting her hands on her hips. "I need your hand, or you're going to have to deal with my fingers on your neck." 

Bucky gently disentangled his flesh fingers from Tony's. He moved to replace them with his other ones, but a small hand on his metal bicep stopped him. 

"Let go of him for a moment, alright? He's okay." This time her words were soft, and Bucky listened. 

Janet took Bucky's wrist in her hand and turned it upward. She found his pulse and counted silently, her eyes on the clock on the wall. 

Bucky had initially refused any sort of treatment. He had woken up in the hospital with Steve and Natasha in his room, hooked up to the normal assortment of machines that he promptly proceeded to nearly rip off of him as soon as he was half conscious. Part of the reason was that he had many, _many_ bad experiences with waking up disoriented and attached to medical equipment in his years of living under Hydra's thumb. More importantly, his eyes hadn't even opened before the memory of Tony screaming as his arc reactor was torn out of his chest slammed into the front of his brain. 

It had taken both Steve and Natasha to keep him on the bed, and Bucky's friendship with the both of them had been the only thing even remotely keeping him together. 

"Where is he?" He had ground out. 

Steve quickly gave him the run down—Tony was treated immediately and all things considered he was in pretty good shape. He had some extensive exterior and internal bruising across his body, a minorly sprained wrist and a hairline fracture in his eighth right rib. The only major injury he had regarded his arc reactor, but even then Steve had stressed that he was _fine._

The doctors wouldn't be able to fix the damage to the reactor and the casing, but it was performing fine and keeping the shrapnel out of his heart which was the important thing. What the doctors _could_ fix were the wounds along the interior of his thoracic cage. When the knife had been used to wrench the arc reactor out of the casing, part of the metal had bent and popped out of place at one of the seams. This had led to tearing along the inside of his thoracic cavity regarding his pectoral muscles. When designing the arc reactor casing after he had gotten back from Afghanistan, Tony had worked with several doctors to design a circular fake sternum. It would be attached to the casing inside of his chest, and the doctors would use it to anchor his ribs and chest muscles as if it was a real sternum. When the casing had been compromised, it had cracked the fake sternum, causing internal bleeding and tearing, which Tony had been admitted into surgery for. 

The news of just how bad Tony had been injured nearly made Bucky lose it, but Steve had pressed him into the bed and forced Bucky to look at him as he said that Tony was _fine._

"The surgery is done, all the doctors are doing is putting one of the backup casings Tony gave them into his chest, he'll be out of that room before the hour and then you can see him. He's okay, Bucky, he's going to be alright." 

After Bucky had generally calmed down, they had tried to get Bucky back on the machines, but he kept refusing. Finally, Steve and Natasha gave up with the understanding that Bucky would stay on an IV and that he would be checked over as often as the nurses saw fit to make sure that the drugs were working their way out of his system. Bucky had only agreed because Tony had been exiting surgery, and he knew that if anything Natasha wouldn't let him out of the room until they had found some sort of compromise. 

Which brought him to Tony's bedside and Janet appearing every hour to "make sure that he was still breathing" as she put it. 

"You're fine," Janet said, letting Bucky's wrist go. Bucky watched her bustle around the room for a few moments. "You better be in bed when I come back in here, you hear me?" 

"Yes ma'am." 

Grumbling about superheroes and stubbornness, Janet closed the door behind her, leaving Bucky alone with Tony once more. Bucky slipped his hand back through Tony's, dropping a kiss onto his knuckles. 

"I'm right here, alright? Nothing is going to happen to you." Bucky's voice was a little shaky in the end, but he couldn't help it when Tony's unnaturally still body on the floor flashed across his eyelids whenever he blinked. 

In a way, it was like a memory surfacing during his recovery period. What had happened was in the past, and there was nothing that Bucky could do to change it, but that didn't stop the guilt or the helplessness, the overwhelming feeling that he should have done _something,_ that it was his fault why those people died, why Tony was hurt and aching. 

_I should have done something._

Bucky brushed his hand through Tony's hair. 

"I'm right here, doll. Right here." 

* * *

"What th' fuck 're you doin' outta bed?" 

Bucky jumped, his head snapping up to find Tony sleepily glaring at him. 

"You're awake! How are you feeling? Should I-" 

Tony shook his head and frowned deeper.

"Wait," he mumbled and rubbed at his eyes. When he was done he squinted and then flopped back into bed hard enough to make Bucky's heart lurch—hadn't that hurt? 

"I'm... _sooo_ high." 

"They had to give you something for the surgery, and I know they put you on painkillers." 

Tony hummed and then fell quiet. Bucky stayed in his seat, unsure what to do. 

"Do you… should I... "

"Stop that," Tony interrupted, turning onto his side and looking Bucky right in the eyes. Something in Bucky's chest loosened at the sight of Tony moving and talking, like a part of him was still waiting for the other shoe to drop and for someone to tell him that Tony really wasn't going to be okay. 

"Stop what?"

"Bein' mad 't yours'lf. 'M fine." 

Bucky chewed at his lip and for a minute everything was quiet. Tony pouted. 

"If I wasn' high off m' ass I'd chew you 'ut f'r thinkin' this was your fault," he said, words a little more slurred than they were a moment ago, "But I'm on th' good drugs an' you kinda need to be in bed w'th me." Tony grabbed at Bucky's sleeve and scootched over so there was a Bucky sized space on the bed. "C'mere." 

Bucky can't resist him on a good day, but now when he's sleepy and needy, a wrinkle between his eyebrows that Bucky wants nothing more than to smooth out? He doesn't stand a chance. 

Bucky gently maneuvers them both so none of the medical equipment is sat or tugged on, and something in him melts when Tony immediately plasters himself to Bucky's front, his hands curled into his shirt instead of the blanket. He wraps an arm around Tony and buries his face into Tony's hair. He tries to relax his body, but there had been a vibrating tension under his skin ever since he had first woken up in the hospital. How had he let anyone hurt this man? 

"Tell 'ur brain t' shut th' fuck up," Tony grumbled, twisting to try and get closer, "'m trying t' sleep. Not ev'n super soldiers c'n fight ev'ryone on 'nuff drugs t' stop a grizzly bear. Sleep, m'kay? Love you. Me too." 

Tony gripped at Bucky's shirt tighter and tucked his head right under Bucky's chin so he could press his nose right up to Bucky's pulse. He immediately dropped off to sleep, boneless. 

Bucky exhaled, forcing the tension from his limbs. Logically, he knew that Tony was right, and he knew that he was having such a hard time with it because of his time as the Winter Soldier. He still had trouble being helpless, but Tony was helping him learn that even ex-assassins had limits, and that it was okay. 

Eyes closed and head against the pillow, Bucky traced mindless patterns over the bare skin of Tony's arm. 

"Love you, doll," he murmured even though Tony couldn't hear him, "I love you too." 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](https://phony-stony.tumblr.com/), or you can reblog this fic [here](https://phony-stony.tumblr.com/post/611521081649528832/ive-got-you-its-okay) on tumblr!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it, comments and kudos fuel me so please tell me what you think!!! I take prompts on here or on tumblr too fyi. 
> 
> Stick around for the following month, I've got a whole list of things to post for you guys :)


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